BIOGRAPHY · DRAMATISTS
John Lahr
Also known as: JOHN LAHR, Lahr John
John Henry Lahr (born July 12, 1941) is an American theater critic and writer. From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at The New Yorker. He has written more than twenty books related to theater, including Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, and won many awards for his work.
IN THE TELEVISION ALCOVE of Woody Allen's book-lined and flower-filled Fifth Avenue duplex penthouse is a framed letter from Arthur Conan Doyle which mentions Houdini, the great escapologist.
— from Show and Tell
Most acclaimed
Notes on a cowardly lion
Lahr's professional career and his complex private life are seen as an organic whole in a work that, combining immediacy with genuine perspective, is important both as a personal portrait and as a contribution to theater history.
SINATRA
"I am a symmetrical man, almost to a fault," Frank Sinatra once said. It is a peculiar statement, because Sinatra is precisely asymmetrical. How to reconcile the enchanting crooner and the explosive bully? What to make of the smooth tones of his voice and the rough edges of his persona? To find the true correspondence between the public and the private Sinatra, the artist and the man, is no easy task. John Lahr, drama critic for The New Yorker has done just this in Sinatra: The Artist and the Man. Lahr traces the trajectory of the "solitary latchkey kid" from Hoboken, New Jersey, into the stratosphere of fame. Sinatra kept company with presidents and mobsters; he kept up the front of a happy family life for as long as he could and then took up with the most desired women in the world - Ava Gardner, Lauren Bacall, Anita Ekberg, Marilyn Monroe, and many, many more. He led a life of manic gregariousness, yet spoke to the romance and loneliness of the "wee small hours of the morning." He desperately needed to exist within the gaze of the audience but at the same time would express aloofness toward his fans, saying he was happiest "when I'm onstage all by myself with an orchestra and nobody to bug me.". Sinatra: The Artist and the Man also examines the miracle of Sinatra's return - much of what is marvelous about Sinatra today is that we know who he is at all, so far did he fall in the late forties. Sinatra came back with a vengeance as Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity, a heartfelt and brilliantly comic performance that won him an Academy Award. At the same time, he reclaimed control of the recording studio and, with the help of an ingenious arranger named Nelson Riddle, perfected the swinging sound of his mature years. Sinatra then proceeded to build a media empire that has been the standard by which all other stars have measured their success. The artist and the man: Sinatra epitomized control and he raged uncontrollably, destroying friendships, love affairs, and a plate-glass window or two; he won fans around the world across three generations, created an unparalleled body of recorded work, and almost single-handedly invented the postwar American swagger and "the image," Lahr writes, "of perfect individualism."
Joy Ride
A collection of profiles and reviews from "The New Yorker" reveals details of the lives of contemporary dramatists as well as their sources of solace and inspiration, including Arthur Miller, Wallace Shawn, Harold Pinter, and David Mamet.